1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera of easy film loading type which is so arranged that when a film housed in a film cartridge is loaded into a film cartridge chamber of the camera in such state that a leader portion of the film remains outside the camera and then a closure of said film cartridge chamber is closed, the leader portion of the film is retracted into the camera and then the film is wound onto a film winding spool, whereby the film loading is completed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A camera of the type which makes use of a film of belt shape housed in a film cartridge has such disadvantage that it is very troublesome to load the film into the camera. Heretofore, various proposals have been made to simplify the film loading operation of the camera.
Recently the applicant has proposed a novel camera of easy film loading type in which the film loading operation is considerably simplified, which is disclosed in our copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 026,267 filed on Mar. 16, 1987.
This novel camera of easy film loading type is so arranged that the film loading is completed, only by loading a film cartridge containing a film into a film cartridge chamber of the camera in such state that a leader portion of the film extending out of the film cartridge remains outside the camera and then closing a closure of the film cartridge chamber, without requiring any other operation. That is, according to the above-mentioned novel camera which has been proposed by the applicant, when the user of the camera closes the closure of the film cartridge chamber after loading the film cartridge into the film cartridge chamber in such state that the film leader portion extending out of the film cartridge remains outside the camera, the leader portion of the film exposed outside the camera is retracted into the camera and then idle rewinding operation is started to wind the film onto a film winding spool, whereby the film loading is automatically completed.
The camera having the above-mentioned performance, which has been previously proposed by the applicant, can effect the film loading operation in a very simple manner and, consequently, it can be very easily handled as compared with the conventional camera. However, it has a problem to be solved, as hereinafter described.
That is, the camera as described above is arranged to start idle winding of the film immediately after completion of operation of retracting the leader portion of the film into the camera (idle rewinding operation), and the idle winding amount of the film is predetermined as a constant value. Under the circumstances, if the user of the camera erroneously (or intentionally) pulled out substantial length of the leader portion of the film, which is exposed outside the camera, before starting the idle winding operation, the idle rewinding amount would be larger than the idle winding amount. In such a case, even when the idle winding operation has been completed, the already exposed portion of the film could not be completely wound onto the film winding spool but located at the position of an aperture of the camera. If photographing operation is started under such circumstances, the already exposed portion of the film would be used as a photographing film portion, resulting in failure of the photographing.